


The Legend of the Other Veronica

by Trixen



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:35:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixen/pseuds/Trixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronica's trying to shed her skins, and Logan's trying to love her. Gross poetry, Eli, the reservoir that no one knows about in Neptune and Lilly, Lilly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Legend of the Other Veronica

She has her feet slipped beneath the water of Sweet Arrow, the reservoir just outside of Neptune. Weevil is sprawled beside her on the steaming asphalt. There is no end or beginning to the horizon, only burning cliffs of moonlight. It is very very hot and she feels that the greatest pleasure in the world would be cool powdery sheets, the _clink clink_ of ice in a glass. Her skin feels dirty, sweaty and she wishes her body was a cupboard she could clean out, scrub with harsh chemicals, sanitize.  
  
“You know what the problem with the world is?”  
  
He lifts his fist to his jaw, smoothes it across his stubble. “No, but I’m sure you’re gonna enlighten me.”  
  
“Correct as usual, King Friday.” She picks up one of the beer bottles that rest between them. She is not sure if it is his or hers and that bothers her. But she drinks from it anyway. The beer is cool and soapy in her mouth. “What?”   
  
He just looks at her.  
  
“Don’t _tell_ me you never watched Mr. Rodger’s.”  
  
Weevil chuckles. “I’m tellin’ ya.”  
  
Veronica shakes her head and her whole body moves, sending ripples across the reservoir. “The problem with the world is that the victims always fold up and run away and hide in dark corners. People never fight.”  
  
“Not everybody’s as strong as you, V.”  
  
“I’m not strong,” she says, feeling disgusting again. There is semen all over her. Wriggling, eager. Her tazer wounds begin to sting, as they always do when she thinks about sex as anything other than a foreign country. “I think I should go swimming. That would be totally nirvana.”  
  
“Right. Big words.” He sniffs. “It s’too hot for that.”  
  
“No,” she says witheringly. “Actually Nirvana.” He looks confused. “You know? The cover of ‘Nevermind’? I’d be as happy as the little naked baby chasing the money. Man, you really need to get with the pop culture references.”  
  
“Well you didn’t tell me you’d be naked.” Weevil says lazily. “Give a guy some warning. I’d need to get some popcorn for a show like that. Or maybe just some lotion and a towel.”  
  
She doesn’t listen to him. “I’m not strong.”  
  
“We’re back to that?”  
  
“It always comes back to that. I think I used to be. Before—“  
  
“Naaah, V,” he scoffs. “You were a little lamb. Cute an’ all, but totally ripe for the plucking. I could’ve had ya giving it up like it was your job—if I’d noticed you, that is. Which I didn’t.”  
  
“This isn’t about _sex_ ,” she says, her voice low and taut, like an electrical wire caught in a storm. “It’s about how much you can take.”  
  
“Ain’t that the same thing?”  
  
Veronica hits him. His shoulder is naked and bare and polished in the night. “You realize I _will_ hurt you?”  
  
“I thought you didn’t want to talk bout sex.”  
  
She takes another drink of beer. The night is blurring around the edges. “I don’t.”  
  
“You’re not f-ucking that 09er?”  
  
“None of your business,” she says, burping delicately. “And, no.”  
  
“Now I _know_ he’s a moron.”   
  
“And your girlfriends have been MENSA candidates?” she asks. “I like Tyson. He’s—“  
  
“A security blanket.”   
  
“I’m not running.”  
  
Weevil picks up one of the beer bottles, heaves it into the wilderness behind them. It makes a slight splintering sound and then there is only the distant drone of the stars. He seems to think for a moment and Veronica can tell he wants to touch her but won’t.  
  
“I was ready to run from Lilly. I wanted to, you know, but I just—whatever, look she had that power and she was crazy, but I knew it was _real_ so I stayed where I was. I had balls. You’re gettin’ to be a little wussy, Mars, and if you don’t watch out, you’re gonna lose what you worked for.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Peace.”  
  
+  
  
Veronica has a dream. It recurs daily. She has taken to falling asleep in her American Female Poets class. Usually she is up late, tracking the rapists and pissing off every fraternity member at Hearst. So she yawns through her early morning classes and nods off as her professor is talking about Anne Sexton’s fascination with the female body. In her dream, she is splayed out on a chair, naked. A demon is taunting her, asking her questions. He is trying to dip his hands into her skull so that he may read her brain.   
  
“Who are you?” she asks, although she already knows.   
  
“Abraxas,” the demon whispers, his tongue wet on her skin. “I am the god of lies. What can I do? What do you want?”   
  
“Tell me who I am.”  
  
“I can only tell you lies. I can speak to you of lies. Some people run from truth, some towards it.”   
  
“Is that what I’m doing?”  
  
Abraxas considers her, the nakedness of her body. “You are a liar who constantly seeks truth.”  
  
When she wakes up, she is shuddering. Her professor is reading from Anne Sexton’s, “Again and Again and Again” and Veronica feels as if the words are searing her, nerve by nerve by nerve.   
  
“I have a black look I do not  
like. It is a mask I try on.  
I migrate toward it and its frog  
sits on my lips and defecates.   
It is old. It is also a pauper.”  
  
The poem is gross but it reaches down her throat and snatches her breath. Just as surely as Abraxas lashed her to the chair. Veronica feels anxious and slippery and she wishes she was at the Sweet Arrow reservoir, dipping her toes in the cool, clean depths.  
  
+  
  
Wallace punches her arm in greeting. He plays basketball so much now that she gets the feeling he’d love to pick her up and dribble _her_. But it makes her smile. He is happy and so she is happy for him.  
  
“Its just sick,” he says, and munches on a Snickers. “I keep seein’ those girls with their heads shaved. More and more of ‘em, every day.”  
  
“I know,” she whispers. Sometimes she wonders what it would be like. Cassidy could have taken a razor to her scalp after he tugged up her dress, came in her body—her vagina—she has to think of it that way now or she will never face the reality of it. The true reality of what he did to her. She has no memory and so she has invented memories, placed them in categories inside of her mind. She imagines the silver razor in his hand, glinting. She imagines the shanks of blonde drifting onto the bed like snow. She remembers the way she used to be, pink and unspoilt. “I can’t seem to stop it from happening.”  
  
“You’ll do it,” Wallace says, with the utter confidence she envies. “You always do, Mars.”  
  
“Thanks,” she answers dryly.   
  
“Yo Tysonnnnn,” Wallace greets Veronica’s boyfriend. He loves Tyson. “Whats up, bro?”  
  
“Nothin’ much,” he responds and kisses Veronica lightly. It is dry, chaste. “How’s my girl?”  
  
“Anxiously awaiting her next class,” she says brightly and holds up her schedule. “Physics. Ooooh. I’ve always wanted to fail that.”  
  
“You’ll kick ass,” Tyson says, looping an arm around her midsection. “Who’re you guys playin’ against tonight, Fennel?”  
  
They discuss sports and Veronica feels herself beginning to fade from the conversation. She remembers and she doesn’t want to. She wonders where he is right now, wonders if he’s at Hearst, though she knows he must not be. He is living in an apartment downtown, she has seen him going through the doors. He moved there after she got back from New York and broke up with him. It was spectacularly awful.   
  
“Fuck you, _no_ ,” he said desperately, trying to gather her close with those long arms and those long-reaching eyes. “No, Veronica, don’t—“  
  
“I have to, Logan, I can’t be with you,” she tried to get away from him, felt suffocated and panicky. “Stop it. Stop—“  
  
“I love you, Veronica, don’t do this—“  
  
And Anne Sexton whispered in her ear. _I will kiss you when_  
  
“I can’t be with anyone right now. I need space.”  
  
 _I cut up one dozen new men_  
  
“That’s bullshit,” he said tightly and finally let go of her, pushing himself away. His hand came up and he pounded on the wall, broke the plaster. It split and his knuckles were bloody. “That’s bullshit and you know it is. Why’re you even bothering? Is there someone else?”  
  
“Someone else?” Veronica echoed. Yes. Cassidy. “No, Logan, don’t be childish.”  
  
“I was born that way.” His mouth twisted. There was blood dripping onto the floor. Drop after drop, wet and new. “S’all part of the charm. Thought you liked it, Veronica.”  
  
“I did.”  
  
 _and you will die somewhat_  
  
“Past tense, huh?”  
  
 _again and again_  
  
“Yes.”  
  
+  
  
Veronica tracked Duncan down sometime after she began her classes. It wasn’t difficult. She often wonders why people believe they can get away from her. She calls him after her Physics class, her mind still buzzing from the foreignness of atoms and neurons, the anthropology of energy. But she feels all the sharper for it, less like she is floating above her body. So she calls Duncan in the moment of clarity, she calls him to remind herself.  
  
He is annoyed. “You’re gonna get me caught.”  
  
“No I’m not, silly. Put Lilly on the phone.” She listens to the gurgles, the spitting, the bubbles of breath, cooing softly. “She’s gorgeous.”  
  
“I know,” he says. “Are you ok, Veronica?”  
  
“Peachy keen,” she replies and gets right to it. “Do you remember what I was like before Lilly died?”  
  
“Yeah,” he is uncomfortable. “Sure I do.”  
  
“Tell me about her.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Me. Before Lilly died.”  
  
“Don’t you remember?”  
  
She feels herself breathe. A long, thin exhalation. Anne Sexton is still murmuring against her ear; an intimacy she doesn’t welcome. _My death from the wrists, two name tags –_ and it is horrible, and everything smells like smoke. She is burning up.   
  
“I remember. But tell me.” She won’t beg. “I’d appreciate it, Duncan.”  
  
He laughs a little. “You were – innocent. You had this long blonde hair. I used to dream about drowning in it—in a nice way. I remember that first time we made love and how your white dress looked against your knees. You were perfect.”  
  
“Unspoilt,” she whispers, knowing what a lie that is. Cassidy had already gotten to her, pulled that white dress around naked knees, buckled his belt, cleaned the sperm from his penis – if he orgasmed, she’s not sure if he did – and yet she was still in a dreamworld, still that other Veronica. “Right?”  
  
“Yeah.” He pauses, then hesitates.   
  
She fills the space. “Logan and I broke up again.”  
  
“Again?”  
  
“Well…”  
  
“I should’ve known,” he says, sounding tired. “What happened?”  
  
“The usual drama.”  
  
“Veronica-- you became even more beautiful after Lilly died. I loved the other you but it was like you—you were a snake, Veronica. Shedding your skin and just – _becoming_.”  
  
“That’s just what every girl likes to hear.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
“I do.” She does and it seems like a shame. She suddenly wishes she were back in Physics class. She’d rather be measuring space and molecules than the incestuous past. “Catch some waves for me.”  
  
“Sure thing. Love you.”  
  
“Bye,” she says. Soft.   
  
She hangs up and stares at the wall. There is nothing there but paint and skeletal remains. But it is enough and she lets herself for one moment. She lets herself imagine the way Cassidy might have held her wrists above her head and kissed the spit from her mouth and felt her, dry against his thigh. She thinks banal thoughts. The word rape. She looks it up in the dictionary. Traces the words with her thumb, taps them each with her nail.   
  
**rape**  
  
 _noun_  
1\. Eurasian plant cultivated for its seed and as a forage crop   
2\. the act of despoiling a country in warfare   
3\. the crime of forcing a woman to submit to sexual intercourse against her will   
  
_verb_  
1\. force (someone) to have sex against their will; "The woman was raped on her way home at night"  
2\. destroy and strip of its possession; "The soldiers raped the beautiful country"   
  
The beautiful country of her body. The valleys. She can’t help it. She throws up over the thin place where the pages meet. A milky gush of cornflakes and she cries a little, cries because she wishes he would come back. Only so she could change her mind. Push Logan away, one hand against his breastbone, feel the pulse of his blood, and shoot the gun. Shoot the gun.   
  
+  
  
She walks on the beach with Backup and Tyson. The sky is burnt blue. Tyson makes her laugh and presses a kiss against her forehead. When he leaves, he thanks her, just as he always does.   
  
She is left staring at Logan. He is dressed in surf clothes and is tugging at his ear, looking at her with that cocked-head expression she used to find so devastatingly sexy. Now she just finds it devastating.   
  
“How sweet,” he finally says. “How much did the escort agency charge you?”  
  
“Nice to see you too, Logan.”  
  
“You know what absolutely _kills_ me?”  
  
She turns, but he follows her.  
  
“It’s the transformation. Innocent victim to man-eating slut in just under a month. How long did it take you to spread your legs for this one? And how about Weevil? Slumming, V? I guess what I hear is true. You really are your Mother’s daughter.”  
  
Her mouth tightens and she whirls, catching him in the chest with her hand. He feels fever hot and he is smirking, but it slips. She pushes him and watches him stumble.  
  
“This is your fault,” she says, her voice quick and hard. “You should have let me do it.”  
  
“I don’t speak ‘vague’,” he replies. “Enlighten me.”  
  
Veronica can’t help but laugh. Her teeth glint in the sunlight and she wishes she could kick his face with her boot until it splits. Instead, she chooses to destroy his beauty in other ways. She has always been sneaky. She knows this, she exploits it. Her eyes meet his and she tastes his fear, his confusion, the wet reek of his anger.   
  
“You should have let me become what I already am.”  
  
She walks away. It is time for class.   
  
“Do you think that Anne Sexton was too graphic with what she wrote about the female body?” the Professor asks. No one stirs for a moment. “Was she too open about menstruation? About sex? About her affair with her married lover? Does reading the poetry make you uncomfortable? Squeamish?”  
  
Veronica glances down at the book on her lap.   
  
_And tonight our skins, our bones,  
that have survived our fathers,  
will meet, delicate in the hold,  
fastened together in an intricate  
lock. Then one of us will shout,  
“My need is more desperate!” and  
I will eat you slowly with kisses   
even though the killer in you  
has gotten out._  
  
She wonders if he survived his father. She has never asked him. Annoyance is crawling beneath her skin. She hates being sentimental, hates feeling this weakness. She wishes she could escape her body. But where would she put it? Anne Sexton put hers at the bottom of a garage, puffed up and purple with carbon monoxide. But Veronica can’t and won’t commit suicide. The idea is laughable to her.   
  
She just needs---  
  
a break.   
  
She takes the long way downtown, walking, stretching out her legs. She wears a skirt. Her legs are polished in the light and she imagines them up, wide, splayed. But it is not Abraxas whispering in her ear. It is not even Cassidy. It is Logan, and his tone is guttural with longing. Everything in her goes tight and hot and she wets her lips, picking up the pace.  
  
She isn’t sure what to say. He opens the door and he does not look as she expected him to look. A disaster. Bleary-eyed. Drink on his breath. There is none of that. There is clean lines, a spare apartment. There is none of her disaster. She feels foolish and her lips quirk. But he smiles, as if he is relieved.  
  
“Veronica.”  
  
If he says anything more, he will ruin things. She knows Logan and knows he is a master at that. So she shuts the door with her foot, shuts him up with her lips. The sex is quick. He keeps trying to slow her down, but he can’t and she’s pretty sure no one can. They don’t make it to the bedroom. Veronica drags him down onto the carpet, anxious to grip onto this moment because the last thing she wants to do now is change her mind. She is wet, slippery almost, and it does not take long for him to orgasm. He gasps, fast and sharp. He tries to touch her clit, but she pushes him away. It has only just occurred to her that she is bleeding. She feels ripe, like she is glowing.   
  
He holds her against his chest with one arm. He is sweating and raw and he says; “I don’t mind.”  
  
“Don’t be disgusting.”  
  
He laughs low. “I may’ve slept through biology, but I think the blood comes from you. So how’s that disgusting—“  
  
“I’m cold.”  
  
“You’re burning up, Veronica.”  
  
“Ok, Dr. Spock.” She can feel fresh wetness on her inner thighs. She shudders, embarrassed and angered. It is such a private thing for him to witness. “I need to go.”  
  
“Fuck and run, huh? I see.” Logan looks pensive. “So… how’s life while grazing on greener grass?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“That jockstrap you’re with.”  
  
She is weary of questions. “We struck a deal. I’m his beard; he’s my eyes and ears.”  
  
“A frat member?”  
  
“Better. A frat member stuck in the closet. I was lucky. He tells me what he knows about the rapes. I pretend we have carnal knowledge of each other.” She pulls up her pants. “I have to go.”  
  
“You’d think the pain would’ve dulled by now, and yet that phrase still hurts.”  
  
She smiles. That’s what she said when she was leaving, after she broke up with him, broke his heart. She walked out and into the elevator, threw up all over the place. It was green and foamy and made her sicker and sicker just looking at it. She rode down in an elevator that smelled of her own insides and she thought that she just needed to climb out of her body. So she wouldn’t recognize that smell, so she wouldn’t still see every drop of blood from Logan’s knuckles. But she smiles now, because if not, she’ll cry, and God what a cliché that would make her.   
  
“I’m sorry,” is all she says.  
  
“You wrecked me.”  
  
“Join the club,” she answers, her voice cracking. It is not difficult to leave and she realizes she is becoming. She is becoming just like her Mother. She calls Weevil because right now, she really needs to feel the wind in her hair and the taste of beer in her mouth.  
  
Weevil takes her to the reservoir. She doesn’t clean up beforehand, leaves Logan’s sperm drying on her thighs, leaves her blood and her guts where they’ve landed.   
  
“You smell good,” Weevil says roughly.  
  
“Eau de Veronica.”  
  
She stares at Sweet Arrow. The water is cool, rushingly deep. She looked up ‘sweet arrow’ a few days ago. It means ‘an arrow which flies straight and true’. At the time, she wondered what she had been. Which Veronica died when Lilly’s skull thwacked against concrete, which Veronica died when Cassidy unzipped his jeans. She wonders why there is no dream of Lilly to save her, why when Logan says her name it is not enough, why why why. Why there is no grace at all, not for her.   
  
She steps into the reservoir, her clothes on, her hair loose over her shoulders. The water stings her skin and she throws her arms out, tired of asking, of dreaming, of trying to find answers in the poetry of dead women. But she cannot help herself. There will always be a new truth to discover, a new layer of flesh to peel back.  
  
Dipping her head beneath Sweet Arrow, she feels it, cool and unwavering, running over her eyes, teeth, lips. Washing Logan from her body, washing Cassidy, dissolving each and each like salt, turning her from a body into a thing without memory. Everything is bright and vast and the color of tears and Veronica waits, wonders, what she will be when she steps from the water. Which Veronica will be born.   
  
_Finis_


End file.
